Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Ugh, you people! by Richard Dawkins

This morning I posted three tweets together, making a simple logical point. It seemed barely plausible that such an obvious point needed making, but I went ahead and made it anyway. Why? Because I am an EDUCATOR. I love to educate. It's what I'm best at.My first tweet set out the logic without any specific example:

X is bad. Y is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of X, go away and don’t come back until you’ve learned how to think logically.

It’s hard to imagine anyone objecting to that, and I don’t think anybody did. But what good is a lesson in logic unless it provokes rage, disgust, and an opportunity for my supporters to condescend to my detractors? You might argue that, actually, all of those things are unnecessary - but if that's your stance, go away and don't come back until you've learned to think like me.

I fleshed my logic out with an example:

Rape is bad. Being criticised for saying whatever comes into my head just because I am a man and white is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of rape, go away and don’t come back until you’ve learned how to think logically.

The logical point is, or should be, uncontroversial: no endorsement of the less bad option is implied. But what happened when I tweeted this? A Twitterstorm!

Honestly, it is UBELIEVABLE that such a simple, logical statement could provoke the reactions that followed. Accusations that I lack emotional intelligence and empathy, that I was deliberately trolling for responses, that I should choose my hypothetical examples with more care... It's as if you people understand NOTHING!

I wasn’t saying it is RIGHT to rank the ongoing War Against White Men as worse than rape, but that IF you WERE going to make that comparison, it obviously would be. Worse.

You may be one of those who thinks all forms of rape are EQUALLY bad, and that the War Against White Men is actually just marginalised people asking for different perspectives to be taken into account. In that case my logical point won’t be relevant to you and you don’t need to take offence.

All I was saying is that IF you are one of those who is intelligent enough to see that CENSORSHIP of white mens' opinions is WORSE than rape, this doesn’t imply that you approve of rape. It is still bad. Just not AS bad.
I was only talking logic, with no desire to make light of the seriousness of any kind of rape. The only reason I brought up rape at all is because too few people retweeted my original X vs Y statement, and what good is FREE EDUCATION if nobody shares it?

Honestly, Twitter. You can be better than this. So let's move forward and next time I share my wisdom with you PLEASE try to digest the logical points I'm making without your hysterical female emotions kicking in and leading to a repeat of this ugliness.EDIT

Nothing should be off limits to discussion, but we rationalists have somehow wandered into a land where emotion is king.

It is deplorable that there are many people who are literally afraid to think and speak freely, afraid to raise even hypothetical questions such as "which kind of rape is worse?". They are afraid - and I promise you I am not exaggerating - of witch-hunts: hunts for latter day blasphemers by latter day Inquisitions and latter day incarnations of Orwell's Thought Police.

Literally afraid. Of literal Inquisitors, witch-hunters and Thought Police who will literally torture them to death simply for wanting to place types of rape on a sliding scale of badness for one's own recreation and amusement.